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Harry Potter Leaked Via Handheld Camera
owlgorithm writes "Salon reports that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been leaked four days before it hits bookstores. It turns out that someone with access to the American edition of the book has taken a photograph of every one of the pages and made them available via bittorrent. Publishers may well be quaking in their boots, but in some places the quality is barely legible. On many pages the pirateer's hands are in the pictures with other pages needing a bit of Photoshopping just to make out the words. It appears many of the sites have been removing the content, naturally enough."
so? it's not like it's worth anything. Labor intensive, to boot
I'm not crazy,I'm actively irresponsible.
a single sale.
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This could be a marketing strategy. Just make sure the readable pages don't expose much of the story and make the unreadable pages contain bits of juicy writing. Just enough to make book worms salivate for more Potter action.
I should pattent this method of advertising.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I was planning on picking up the book on Saturday morning and I was going to avoid the Web, TV, and radio till I finished. Now I've got to start the self-imposed media blackout now.
[Insert pithy quote here]
So, somebody MADE you read the spoilers?
It could be worse, it could be Monday.
I really do find it sad and pathetic that some people live to spoil things for others. I couldn't care less about Harry Potter but many people do. It's in the same category with defacing artwork to feel a sense of self importance. If they have no talent themselves they feel it gives their lives meaning to destroy some one elses work. Obviously it's not on the same level but it is the same kind of mentality of people that do things like shoot John Lennon. No one knew who the guy was before or cared but now they know his name. Great the guy managed to leak Harry Potter so for a moment he's important. That isn't gaining geek points they are looser points in my book.
...what possible perverse pleasure anyone could get out of spoiling something wonderful for other people. I sometimes go looking for spoilers, but for something I am really, really looking forward to, I won't do it. I LIKE to anticipate, be surprised, feel the "magic," however you wish to put it. I know, so don't look, but I just can't help feeling sorry for people who walk through life with all the wonder ripped out, and feel that everyone else deserves to have theirs ripped out, as well. Whatever anyone thinks of Harry Potter, anything that encourages reading, imagination, excitement, and wonder is something worth preserving intact.
I have a Sorting Hat replica I won from hollywood.com years ago, and yes, I will be wearing it to the midnight Harry Potter party, looking ridiculous, embarrassing my kids, and loving every minute of it. LoL. Enjoy life, you only go around once.
"I am treated as evil by those who feel persecuted because they are not allowed to force me to believe as they do."
An Insightful Guardian columnist has finally come out and said what literate people have known all along. J.K. Rowling's writing is RUBBISH.
(If you find that revelation shocking, just don't ask about Dan Brown, ok?)
Predictably, a chorus of twit commenters felt driven to argue that the Potter Phenomenon's sheer Scale and Success makes it self-evidently Valuable to Society (much like B. Gates must be an Important and Clever Person because he's Really Rich.) Uh-uh. Crappy writing is not good for anyone, just like crappy food (this may also come as a surprise to some), and on this point I agree wholeheartedly with Mr Lezard:
All the Potter franchise does, like 99% of TV and Hollywood output, is entrench the hold of pointless and mediocre culture. The only thing unusual this time, is it's Made in Britain.
you had me at #!
Hell no - for one thing, nobody is being killed here. But besides that, I frankly don't think it's that big of a deal. In fact, I'd say it's sadder that there are so many people who are so worried about a mediocre series of books.
I read the first four, and stopped there as it became evident that "JK Rowling" was in over her head. The first one was cute, the next few were passable, but she's really not that great of an author. Her last few books seem to reek of "I want to write serious literature", in the sort of undergraduate-english-major kind of way, while still covering all the mandatory bases to allow for the massive commercialization of the series that has made her one of the richest people in England (and one of the richest women alive).
I can console myself somewhat in that at least it's better than television. Still, I cry a bit inside whenever I see/hear Harry Potter being compared to Lord of the Rings or other true fantasy literature (and granted JRR Tolkien was still not the greatest writer ever, but he was a hell of a lot more original - I mean, he invented orcs, and many other core fantasy concepts). I feel like we're raising a generation that may read a bit, sure, but when they're grown up they're going to be going for the John Grisham and the Stephen King, not the Kurt Vonnegut, Douglas Adams, James Joyce, etc...
So to get back to the point, spoiling this book is nothing like killing John Lennon or anybody else. In fact, any book that relies this much on suspense about "who dies at the end?!?!" is already a bad book. Twist endings are not unheard of in good literature, but still it is the journey that is more important than the destination, and it seems that Harry Potter fans have forgotten this fact.
Having something "spoiled" is not simply a matter of having the suspense taken away. Yes, you can still enjoy the story if you know how certain things are going to be... but you don't enjoy it *as much* as if you're figuring out things as you go along. Ever watch a movie or read a book a second time? Ever notice things you didn't notice before... certain foreshadowings, links, etc.? It's a different experience when you know what happens than when you don't.
I accidentally got the books out of order in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy; read 2/3rds of the way through Blue Mars before I read Green Mars. Then, realizing the mistake, stopped Blue and read Green. It wasn't nearly as much fun, knowing how the war would turn out and who would die and who would get captured and have a personality transplant and whatnot. (It's not nearly as interesting as it sounds; I wish I had those dozens of hours I spent slogging through the series back.) Reading the remainder of Blue Mars was much more diverting (the first 2/3rds was sort of confusing, for obvious reasons).
In fact, my husband and I have started avoiding trailers for much-anticipated movies, because even that spoils our enjoyment some. There are some movies or books that are better if you "know what to expect," but most of my favorite media experiences have been when I went in cold, knowing nothing about what to expect or what would happen.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
I'm re-reading the Potter books for the first time, and yes, Rowlings weaknesses as a writer do shine through.
So what?
It's still a fun series. Not every movie needs to be Casablanca; the occasional plot light, special effects heavy movie can be fun sometimes. Not every song needs to be the Ode to Joy, sometimes it's fun to just sing along to some mindless, repetitive pop. We should eat our veggies, but the occasional candy is just fine for our health and a pleasant treat. Not every novel needs to be Brave New World, sometimes I want to enjoy some light fantasy about a kid exploring a magical world.
As for the claim that Potter is somehow bad for kids, that is utter nonsense. The reality is that most American kids really don't like reading. Hell, most American adults don't like reading. Forcing them to read "good" books (for just about any definition of "good") will just make them resentful and believe that books are something unpleasant to be avoided. I believe that's why so many Americans don't read; their emotional response to books linked mandatory book lists full of books that don't interest them. I can assure you that absent the Potter series those kids aren't going to magically start reading the Alice books. Books that the kids enjoy, even bad ones, encourage kids to read, convince them that books and other long form reading can be good. They may not enjoy any given "enduring classic" (for whatever definition you like), but any kid whose made it through Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix isn't going to be terribly daunted when facing 1984. Indeed, during my childhood I was strongly encouraged to read, but given wide freedom in what I read. I chose to read trashy fantasy. When I grew up and was assigned, say Madame Bovary in translation*, I blew through it while my classmates were bitching about how long and hard it was. After reading the first few Shannara novels in grade school, it was nothing. Reading begets reading. People who become serious readers tend to devour anything they can get their hands on. Maybe the bulk of their reading diet is romance novels, technothrillers, or fantasy, but they do occasionally read branch out and read other things. The people who fear books never do.
You and the Guardian writer are not enlightening all us ignorant savages that Rowling is a bad writer. No, you're just being a pretentious ass. It's not enough for you to enjoy the books you enjoy, you need to reach out and actively piss on the books other people enjoy. You're not changing anyone's mind. You're just enjoying being superior by your own tortured definition of superior. That makes you an ass.
* (Unless your goal is to make kids resent books as a source of long, boring, completely pointless crap, don't assign them Madame Bovary. I promise you that high school students will not appreciate it on any level.)
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On the one hand, it's something like 20 years old.
On the other hand, the Star Wars movies have become pop classics, and cultural icons. Thus, it is safe to assume that many people of each generation will want to watch them, and so we should try not to spoil it.
But wait...what order will they watch them? If they start with TPM, then they are going to already know about Vader when they get to the "I am your father" scene. It is no spoiler.
However, many of them will be lucky enough to have someone tell them the right way to watch the movies. (Start with ANH, and go forward until "I am your father", then gosub to TPM, AotC, and RotS to get the story behind Vader, then return and finish the series). It would be a spoiler for these people.
I think the Harry Potter books and/or films might end up in a similar position.
The rule should probably be that for any story (whether book, movie, comic, erotic flip book, whatever), you don't give away story details that might be spoilers unless you are sure you have an audience that already knows, or won't care.
Sorry, but if a movie has been out for more than 3 or 4 months, you can't reasonably expect people to avoid mentioning spoilers about it. It cripples the conversation too much if you have to constantly be worried about "spoiling" a movie that's already out on DVD for someone. Seriously, if they really cared that much they probably would have seen it in the theatre.
If you're the kind of person who finds it impossible to enjoy any movie if you know how it ends, I would suggest either seeing every movie on opening night or learning to live with disappointment.
Unless we want our children to stagnate, yes, we do. Since there's plenty of books for children that do hold literary qualities, and with childhood being as short as it is, there's no need for exposing children to books beneath their level.
I'd rather have mine broaden their minds with Roald Dahl, Terry Pratchett and Philip Pullman than having them end up at the level of J. K. Rowlings and Nora Roberts.
Whatever qualities Terry Pratchett has, they are not as a writer of children's books. And I would rather have my kids reading J.K. Rowling than C.S. Lewis anyday. Rowling certainly has weaknesses as a writer; Lewis has all those weaknesses plus more -- moral, as well as literary. (No argument with Dahl and Pullman, mind you; but there aren't that many other children's writers who are more worth reading than Rowling. I'd rather read Harry Potter to the kids than the Wombles, say.)
However, many of them will be lucky enough to have someone tell them the right way to watch the movies. (Start with ANH, and go forward until "I am your father", then gosub to TPM, AotC, and RotS to get the story behind Vader, then return and finish the series). It would be a spoiler for these people.
No, the right way is obviously not to watch TPM, AtoC and RotS at all. And live happily ever after.
Somehow I doubt that the new Harry Potter book needs much advertising. It's a bit of a paradox because the only reason it's getting attention is because it needs no advertising -- if this were some book that few had heard of, the media wouldn't care that it was leaked.
Idiotic. The problem with an early release (although it would be awesome if some budding writer wrote some fan fiction pseudo-Harry Potter, after which they'll reveal themselves and enjoy the masses that read their work that wouldn't have otherwise) isn't that fans can't stop themselves, but that sociopath asshats have some innate need to try to spoil things for other people, so I'm sure the trolls are downloading it purely for source material.
For that reason there needs to be so much noise of false spoilers that it no longer has the impact it once did.
Harry Potter is seduced to the dark side by Lord Voldemort. To prove his loyalty he is sent to kill Hermione, but just as he's about to strike the mortal blow he pushes back the evil and is freed from Voldemort's grasp.
(BTW: I don't read Harry Potter, but I appreciate that some people are really into it)